This was The Firesign Theatre's first album wherein a single narrative took up both sides of the album.

In Phil Austin's notes to the 1987 Mobile Fidelity re-release of this album he says "Dwarf is the story of the five ages of Man and in particular, the five ages of one George Leroy Tirebiter; a man named after a dog" [6]

The piece centers on the character of Tirebiter (played by David Ossman), a former child actor who spends his time watching himself on late-night television.

As his evening unfolds, the listener hears "excerpts" from fictional movies in Tirebiter's past. High School Madness stars 'Dave Casman' as Peorgie Tirebiter and 'Joe Bertman' as his sidekick, Mudhead—although an earlier portion of the recording intentionally blurs the distinction between fantasy and reality by identifying Tirebiter (not 'Casman') as having been the star of the "Peorgie and Mudhead" films, rather than a character in those films. High School Madness is a parody of the Aldrich Family radio show, the Archie comic book and of 1950s youth culture in general. Parallel Hell is a war film set in Korea, where the soldiers (including Tirebiter) debate the seemingly endless war. These are interspersed with commercials and other staples of late-night television (including a televangelist and a talk show) as Tirebiter randomly changes channels. The broadcasts contain many references to warfare and Cold War paranoia (product names such as Napalmolive), indicating that Tirebiter's world exists under martial law.

The catchphrase, "This is UTV, for you, the viewer!" is eerily prophetic of what in the following decade would become standard television viewing habits for Americans, after the rise of cable television. Television sets of the era generally had two tuning dials, VHF and UHF. The letter "U" was a position on some television sets' VHF dial between channels 13 and 2 which engaged the UHF channel tuner/dial, making the joke a triple entendre.

Another satirical comment from the album is the slogan of The Howl of the Wolf Movie: "Presenting honest stories of working people as told by rich Hollywood stars".[5] It has been said that the origin of the title was taken from a photograph in Bob Dylan's album "Blonde on Blonde", where Dylan is holding a small picture of a person and a pair of pliers. [7]

In 1946, a mongrel whose owner had died wandered onto the campus of the University of Southern California and was adopted by the students as an unofficial mascot. The dog acquired a reputation for chasing cars, hence the name. The dog became so famous that at one point he was kidnapped by rival students from UCLA, who shaved their school's letters into his fur. He was run over and killed by a car in 1950.

In his notes to the Mobile Fidelity release, Austin says that the five ages of George Leroy Tirebiter are:

In 2006, Dwarf was added to the National Recording Registry, a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States."

The name "Firesign Theatre" was suggested by an astrologer-friend of the troupe who noted that all four members had been born under "fire signs." The cover art, by Robert Grossman, features caricatures of the members as their respective astrological animals: Austin as a ram (Aries), Proctor as a lion (Leo), and Bergman and Ossman as two Satyrs or Centaurs (Sagittarius). The Sagittarians are armed, respectively, with a bow and suction-cup arrow and a squirt gun, and the other members are seated on their backs. An eponymous pair of pliers sits on the ground beneath them. The original LP release came with a poster, featuring Polaroid snapshots of group members.